Unlike its stronger counterpart, which shares the same drops as Adamantoise and Adamantortoise, Shaolong Gui does not share the same drops as Adamanchelid, and is the main source for Dark Matter outside of R&D Depot.

The paradigm sets of SEN/SEN/SEN, SAB/SYN/SAB, MED/MED/MED, COM/SYN/MED, RAV/RAV/RAV, and COM/COM/COM can comfortably kill the Shaolong Gui within a reasonable period of time without too much risk. Wearing equipment to reduce damage and, optionally, reduce the likelihood of Daze can be useful.

The player should begin the battle with SEN/SEN/SEN to reduce the damage from the initial Quake attack, then switch to SAB/SYN/SAB to begin the debuffing. Alternatively, begin with SAB/SYN/SAB and then switch to SEN/SEN/SEN immediately, as Quake takes time to cast. It is imperative the Shaolong Gui is constantly debuffed by Slow, in addition to all of the debuffs it is vulnerable to. Especially Daze is helpful. The party can do double damage to Shaolong Gui if it is inflicted with Imperil and a Synergist casts Enfire on the party.

Once Shaolong Gui has been debuffed the party should Stagger it with RAV/RAV/RAV and switch to COM/COM/COM to inflict damage. It will usually take two maxed out staggers to bring the Shaolong Gui down, though a maxed out party can do it in one stagger.

The player should switch to SEN/SEN/SEN when the Shaolong Gui is about to cast either Ultima or Quake.

The Shaolong Gui can be defeated relatively easily by exploiting its vulnerability to Daze. The player can use a party of Fang, Lightning and Hope, with Fang as the leader. The paradigm sets should be SEN/SEN/SEN, SYN/SYN/SYN, MED/MED/MED, SAB/SAB/SAB, RAV/RAV/RAV and SAB/COM/COM. If the party is well-developed in the Crystarium, accessories should focus on boosting Strength and Magic. The party should begin with SYN/SYN/SYN and have Fang cast Haste on herself while the AI handles this for Lightning and Hope.

While the casting is taking place, the player should switch to SEN/SEN/SEN to absorb Quake, then switch to SYN/SYN/SYN. Fang should cast Bravera and Faithra on all party members, while Lightning and Hope cast protective buffs. Once everyone has Bravera and Faithra, MED/MED/MED can be used for healing if needed. Following this, in the SAB/SAB/SAB paradigm, Fang should cast Slow, possibly mixing in some Daze, while waiting for Lightning and Hope to hit the Gui with Deprotect, Deshell and Imperil. Once Imperil is successful, the party should return to SYN/SYN/SYN and let Lightning and Hope take care of casting Enfire on everyone. Fang can cast Protectra and Shellra on herself during this.

Once everyone has Enfire, the party can optionally switch back briefly to SAB/SAB/SAB and hit with Daze, then switch to RAV/RAV/RAV. Bringing the chain gauge up to or near 999% and switching to SAB/COM/COM, Fang should now manually cast Daze repeatedly while Lightning and Hope deal damage. With maxed characters, the Gui should fall in one stagger, and possibly in less than 2:30. If one stagger does not finish it off, but its HP is less than a million, the party doesn't need to bother buffing or debuffing, but return to RAV/RAV/RAV to bring up its chain gauge and stagger it before switching back to SAB/COM/COM to finish it.

To farm for Dark Matter and Gold Nuggets, the best place is in the valley of Eastern Tors behind two Long Guis. After killing the three Shaolong Guis there, the player can exit where the save station is, stick to the wall at the right and jump onto it to find one more Shaolong Gui, wipe it out and return to the three newly respawned Shaolong Gui in the valley. It will not be possible to obtain both a Dark Matter and a Golden Nugget at the same battle. Rare drop have higher priority than common and have 5x better chance to drop when the battle is 5-starred.

Here are calculations of effective drop rate for 5-starred battle:

Drop

No catalogs

Collector's Catalog

Connoisseur Catalog

Both catalogs

Rare

5 × 5% = 25%

5 × 5% = 25%

5 × 1.2 × 5% = 30%

5 × 1.2 × 5% = 30%

Common

(100% − Rare%) × 25% = 18.75%

(100% − Rare%) × (1.5 × 25%) = 28.125%

(100% − Rare%) × 25% = 17.5%

(100% − Rare%) × (1.5 × 25%) = 26.25%

Effects from multiple copies of the same catalog don't stack with each other, however, the effects from different catalogs stack because they affect separate parameter checks.

A battle rating from 0 to 2 stars will decrease the rare drop chance to zero, but battles consuming this much time will more than likely lead to death from the Bay+Ultima combo.